Xterra Nationals Ogden, Utah

Santa Barbara Bash

I love Santa Barbara!! We had such a wonderful weekend with an awesome group of friends. Chuck was our host and he did a great job of showing us around town. It was nice to have a whole weekend of no driving. Chuck lives a couple of blocks from state street and about a mile from the race start so we had no need to jump in our automated wheels. Life is good. Racing, Eating, Cruz'in the beach cruiser, Eating again and Cheering on friends!

cruz'in around town

Saturday we woke up around 4:30am for the Santa Barbara Triathlon. Our group doing the race this year was chuck, tiffany, wes, slater, sean, lisa, paul and me. Everyone did awesome and it was super cool to see friends out there on the course!

cutie pie

I was able to use slates power tap so I can start gathering info, i guess... : ) I still don't get all that confusing graphs and crap, oh well at least he does... my results were:

1st hour - 138norm watts / 335max / 131avg
2nd hour - 130norm watts / 330max / 119avg

i also shaved about 30min off my time from last year.

More eating sat. night : )

Paul's girlfriend Lisa and her roomie Doreen did the women's only race on sunday, it was both their very first tri and we were all super stoked to be their fan club. We headed out early on the bikes and got coffee then headed over to watch them kill it! Lisa ended up having the 10th fastest bike split overall and it was doreen's first time on a road bike and loved it! They did awesome and are ready for their next race!

Lisa getting yelled at by Ellen because she forgot to put on her lip gloss before the run : )

The Santa Barbara Bash is definitely on the agenda every year!
See ya next time!

The Lovely Luge

It was sooo nice to stay in town this weekend! Slater was off to Palomar for the sufferfest and I was off to my friend Jamie's house for her baby shower on Saturday. It was nice to meet some of her friends and get dressed up for the day! "Tis the season" for boys also, I know about five ladies that are all having boys within the next couple of months.. crazy how it "cycles"!




On sunday we did some exciting errands including our favorite coffee break, barnes visit and lunch. Later that day we headed out to the "LUGE" for a nice little singletrack dose! I was excited to wear my new "Team Duke" kit and was laughing when slate came downstairs in his same kit! He enjoys being twins, and when we get dressed separately somehow we always end up wearing something alike.. I guess the longer your married the more you start to dress alike! I can't wait till were eighty and we can go walking in the morning with our same track suits on! HA ! It was super hot but so nice to be out on the trail! Afterwards slate went for a transition run and i walked down to the corner of cooks to check out all the bikes with motors! There were tons of bikes out with fun & interesting people watching to pass the time until slate got back! Dinner and home!

San Juan Trail

Surf Monkey was on the list this weekend where slater and sean did the 1 mile ocean swim down in oceanside. It was so nice to be home for the weekend so we could attend a local event, ok, local to us is anything less than 2 hours away. Slate did awesome and he said there were tons of rip tides and swells, good thing i decided to watch : )




On sunday we met up with sean, lisa and luke for a ride up san juan! The last time I did san juan was about a year ago and it took about 6 hours. This time it took 4, so i was stoked! Also I didn't roll off the side of the mountain riding up like i did last time, who falls off riding up hill anyways? except me! HA... it was super hot, but luke was loving the cool weather.


View of the switchbacks and the lovely smog! I can't wait to go back and ride it again.

Mammoth Madness

We were off to our yearly mammoth trip and i was super excited to be spending the next four days up in the mountains. I love being up in mammoth and i was happy to be spending some time with some old "funny" friends. On the way up slater said he would shuttle luke and me on rock creek because his foot was still bothering him, so we pulled off the hwy and loaded on our gear... i have never done rock creek and i have heard lots of rocks, swooping trails, creek crossings etc. I was excited but a little worried when i looked over and saw that luke had turned into a storm trooper and i had my usual riding gear on! HA "Oh well" i thought "this should be interesting"..

luke took off as i was getting my stuff together and we were all going to meet at the bottom. I was off on the trail and it was a little weird riding by myself... it was so beautiful and i loved rock creek... anything techy "BRING IT ON"! love it! Its tempting to ride downhill'in, but i'm afraid I would never go back!



On friday we rode with the gang and had a blast on the mammoth trails! The weather was perfect with clouds, thunderstorms and rain! It was awesome to go back and ride those trails and too see how much i have progressed, i have had many "over the bars" on that loose dirt and sharp turns and i was stoked i didn't fall once.... we will have to do another trip before the winter comes.

tiffie and me

the gang

the gang bang

We had such a blast hanging out with everyone, I can't wait till next year when we all get together again! fun stuff : )

Peters Canyon Trail Run

since big bear was a solid chuck of training.. 15 hours in three days.. consisting of paddling, swimming, mt biking and bad ass billy's core workout - wow.. am i beat!  this week i have been sleeping at least 8 -12 hours a night and i had a nice nap yesterday with my nephew... he looks like a little doll when he is sleeping..  my total hours this week have been 45 minutes total of which consisted of two runs, one 3omin and the other 15.. i just couldn't get motivated to do anything... drained!

Last night was the peters canyon 2nd event of their trail run series.  i did the last one but decided to be a spectator this time around, still beat down.  stoked, my sister and her hubby came out for the festivities and it was such a nice evening.  slate did awesome coming in sixth overall, damn i can't believe how fast that boy is getting... and my bro in law came in 26th overall with a 7:15 pace for his first running race ever!  how did he get so fast also?  while the boys were hitting the trails my sister and i hung out with her new little boy kadin and we had a blast watching him laugh and we couldn't resist having a photo shoot  :) 

today i decided to get my lazy, unmotivated butt out the door.  i put my bike clothes on and stashed a bunch of food in my jersey and headed out for a ride... not sure where or how far i was going to go?  oh, where will the day take me? : )  i headed for the beach and ended up cruis'in south to the back bay and back home...

some friends came out from santa cruz and santa barbara around lunch time and were all dressed up for a spin... so i got my bike clothes back on and headed back out the door for my second ride of the day...  my legs were turning into jello, and we had a major head wind! man, what was i thinking...  i tucked behind keevin and held his wheel for the 33 miles... with some struggle..   : )  what a good time!  stoked to have put in 63 miles for the day! 

Big Bear Shootout!

Big Bear Shootout was my second mt bike race that i have competed in.  It was a fun day with lots of hills  : )  It was part of the conquer the bear series which also includes the big bear multisport race, paddle race and marathon.  The course had super fun singletrack with lots of sand.  These races have some super strong ladies competing and it was fun seeing them attack the mountain.  I raced in cat. 2 and came out in 4th place.  I really need to work on my sprinting legs... fun day and perfect weather!